Water
by rainydaymonday
Summary: In honor of the heavy mermaid story in Pirates of the Caribbean, I thought it would be fun to issue a challenge where Catherine and/or Sara have a secret life involving water, scales, and tails.
1. Chapter 1

Challenge Extended:

In honor of the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie now playing (and the heavy _**mermaid**_ story-arc), I thought it would be fun if people wrote stories involving our favorite CSI's. Perhaps Catherine and/or Sara having a bit of a secret life involving time spent under the water? Humorous and serious both welcome.

You know you want to.

One shots and on-goings welcome.


	2. Chapter 2

Challenge Extended:

In honor of the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie now playing (and the heavy _**mermaid**_ story-arc), I thought it would be fun if people wrote stories involving our favorite CSI's. Perhaps Catherine and/or Sara having a bit of a secret life involving time spent under the water? Humorous and serious both welcome.

You know you want to.

One shots and on-goings welcome.

* * *

><p>Even before the government had made official statements, and before there were rumors, she'd known.<p>

Known that something wasn't right, that something had shifted.

At first, it was the small things. Always an avid water drinker, she couldn't seem to get enough.

Despite years of quick showers, she'd woken up more than a few times from a deep sleep, insistant on taking a bath, only able to fall asleep again once she was in the warm water.

Thinking that perhaps she had a low-grade fever and that was the culprit, she made three trips to the pharmacy for new thermometors when reading after reading registered her body temperature as 70 degrees fahrenheit.

Of course, none of that compared with the night shift that changed everything.

She and Sara had been called to a scene. A body'd been spotted in an abandoned fishing boat. Small enough for only one person, the initial reports made it look like natural causes. Of course, then blood had been seen, so CSI had been called in.

"Something on your mind, Catherine?" Sara asked, noticing her colleague was staring into the water with a faraway look in her eyes as they were ferried out to the victim in his boat.

"Hmm? Oh, just thinking a swim would be nice."

"At two in the morning? In January?"

"What?" Catherine snapped back to Sara. "Oh, yeah, I don't know, I guess I'm just tired."

"Well, I'm right there with you." She replied as the boat came alongside the floating crime scene.

Sara stepped over first, Catherine following her. She'd almost stepped over when her center of balance was thrown by the rocking of both boats. Before Sara could attempt anything, Catherine plunged between both boats and into the dark water below them.

At first, the water enveloped her with coolness, relaxing her despite the unexpected coldness of the lake water. Relaxation suddenly gave way to panic, however, when Catherine realized she couldn't move her legs. They literally felt like dead weight under her. And it wasn't just heaviness, they felt stuck together. She let herself sink for what felt like an eternity before she regained her bearings. As she began flailing her legs, something unexpected happened-she actually propelled through the water. And that wasn't all-she was breathing, underwater. Still anything but calm, she tried to swim her way through the darkness to the shore.


	3. Chapter 3

Catherine slowly became aware of the cold, wondering what had possessed her to throw off her blankets in the middle of the night. But she wasn't in her bed, the night sounds around her gave that away and slowly it all came back to her. Falling out of the boat, her legs...her legs. Catherine rolled over onto her back. The moonlight above cast just enough light for her to see that from the waist down, she was still in the water. How had she not gotten hypothermia by now? Slowly attempting to stand up, she realized she couldn't feel her feet...they were numb...no, there was feeling but not the way it should have been.

Several more failed attempts at standing had Catherine thinking the worst. Why couldn't she stand?

But then she remembered her breathing. That she was able to do it. Underwater.

This time instead of trying to stand, she pulled herself further out of the water.

And it all became clear.

She couldn't feel her feet because they weren't there anymore.

Catherine grasped at her soaking coat, throwing it off in an attempt to examine herself further. Still not able to see, her shirt was next.

She was still the same, mostly from the waist up, save for little patches of blue-green scales on her forearms and chest.

But below the waist, just shimmering scales and a tail fin, slowly curling in and out.

_Shit. _She thought.


	4. Chapter 4

"Catherine?" Sara yelled as the boat approached the dock.

Sara's voice somehow snapped Catherine out of her stupor. She didn't know how long she'd been staring. Just staring at her tail. _Her tail. _How did this happen? Was it even really happening? Maybe this was all some sort of hallucination or she was in a coma or-

"Catherine?" Sara was getting closer as the leaves rustled nearby. Only a moment later Sara came through the trees and saw her friend lying in the water. She approached not sure what to expect. Catherine's head was lying on the ground, but the water seemed to ripple around her movement. She was alive and Sara breathed a sigh of relief.

"Are you ok?"

"Sara, don't." Catherine said, hesitation in her voice. "Don't come any closer."

"Catherine, we need to get you out of there, to a hospital-"

"No!" Catherine screamed just as Sara came close enough that the moonlight left nothing unseen.

"Oh, Catherine..." She whispered as she sat down at the edge of the water.

"Why don't I have hypothermia?" Catherine whispered, obviously in shock.

Sara sighed, concerned that of all the questions she could be asking, this was the one.

"Because...Cath...you're cold-blooded."

"I'm what? Cold-blooded? But how is that-? How is any of this-"

"I dont' really know..." Sara replied as she pulled a glove off her finger and swirled her hand around in the lake water, simultaneously noticing Catherine try and scoot away, her tail fin swishing uncomfortably.

"I just know it's possible."

"What do you know about what's possible and what's-" Catherine started to say, but stopped, open-mouthed as Sara sat beside her, covered in her own set of scales.


	5. Chapter 5

"I'm dead and that explains it. I died when I fell into the water and that's that." Catherine said shakily as she struggled to pull herself completely out of the water and up the bank.

"You're not dead. I promise you that you're very much alive."

"Yeah, and very much a- a-"

"I use the word mermaid, Catherine, as weird as it sounds."

"But how, and why both of us, and, and..."

"Deep breath Catherine. Let's start by getting out of the water, ok?"

"Why?"

"Because the first thing you need to know is that, assuming we're the same, I only fully change when I have contact with water."

"So you're only a mermaid when you're wet?"

"No, as best as I can figure, I'm always a mermaid, I just don't look like one unless I'm wet."

"That makes sense...I...things have been off with me for a while. My body temperature has been really low, I'm thirsty all the time..."

"You always, always, always, feel drawn to water?"

"Yes." Catherine replied, finally pulling the rest of her tail clear of the lake. She sat for a moment before touching it. It was the oddest thing she'd ever felt. Scaly and slimey and cold, she could feel her fingers as they ran down what used to be her legs. "Do you have any idea why this is happening?"

"Up until just now I only had a pretty good idea, but now that I know I'm not the only one, I'm almost sure of why. You remember a few months ago when that crack-pot scientist showed up everywhere, from the news to YouTube talking about the ice caps melting?"

"Vaguely..."

"Well, he was always going on and on about how if they melted, much of the earth would flood and there would be nowhere for people to live anymore. He said he was working on a way to alter human DNA so they could survive in a much wetter environment. No one, obviously took him seriously, especially when he started in on saying he'd found a sample of DNA within a fossil of the coast somewhere that he thought would help him alter genes."

"Ok, now I think I remember...didn't the government shut him down because of his request for human test subjects?"

"Exactly, and last anyone heard from him, he'd retreated to his second home here...somewhere outside of Vegas."

"So...how does this get to us exactly?"

"Well, you remember a few weeks ago when you and I were called out to that hidden cove area of Lake Mead? Someone thought they'd seen a dead body wash up on shore?"

"Right..."

"And she'd been dead for weeks."

"Remember how both of us had gotten in the water, and we were the only ones?"

Things were starting to come together for Catherine. "Yeah..."

"That guy's house, Catherine, is the closest property to where the woman's body was found. Do you remember the tox report? How her body was riddled with some sort of chemical that had destroyed her DNA? I, I was worried maybe the chemical had been in the water, so I had Doc run tox panel on me."

"Sara, why didn't you say something to me about this earlier? We were both in the water!"

"Because I didn't want to worry you until I knew, and when the tests came back there was only a trace amount in my blood. Doc said it wasn't enough to do any harm...probably because we were only partially exposed and not for very long. So I thought it was ok and I didn't say anything."

"But then how long did it take you to realize it wasn't ok?"

"Only a few days...and I'm guessing the same thing that happened to me...happened to you, only a little faster."

"So you really think this guy is behind all this?"

"I really do. I think whatever DNA he found must have been...probably what our DNA looks like now...and the chemicals were somehow an agent to encourage the absorption and mutation of our genetics."

"Do you think he knows about us? Do you think he's done this to others?"

"I have no idea..."

"What the..." Catherine began to say when she felt a pins and needles sensation all over. But almost as fast as it had started, it stopped. "My legs!" She almost yelled.

"I told you..." Sara said as her legs reappeared also.

"So what now?"

"We call someone to come get us and highly encourage Grissom to put someone else out here on the boat murder. I mean, we did almost drown didn't we?" Sara smiled.


End file.
